OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


The  Roycroft  Inn 


AMERICAN 

TWO      DOLLARS      A      DAY 


ROOMS  with  Private  Bath  and  Out-of-Door 
Sleeping  Room  three  dollars  a  day  for  each 
person.  C.  Specially  Furnished  DeLuxe  Rooms 
with  private  bath,  namely,  "Ruskin,"  "Morris" 
and  " Emerson/'  four  dollars  a  day  for  each 
person.  C,By  the  week  a  discount  of  ten  per 
cent  is  allowed  from  these  prices.  C,  Electric 
Lights,  Steam  Heat,  Turkish  Baths,  Running 
Water,  Art  Gallery*  Chapel,  Camp-in- woods, 
Library,  Music  Room,  Ballroom,  Garden  and 
Wood  Pile.  C,  There  are  Classes  and  Lectures 
covering  the  following  subjects:  Art,  Music, 
Literature,  Physiology,  Nature-Study,  History 
and  Right-Living,  Daily  walks  and  talks  a-field 
—trips  to  the  woods,  lake,  Roycroft  camp,  etc. 


THE     ROYCROFTERS 

East  Aurora,  Erie  County,  New  York 


is  A  LIST  OF  BOOKS  that 
The  Roycrofters  have  on  hand  for 
sale  (of  some  there  are  but  a  few 
copies).  These  are  rather  interesting  books, 
either  for  the  reader  or  the  collector,  or 
for  presents.  Many  people  always  have  a 
few  extra  ROYCROFT  BOOKS  on  hand 
in  readiness  for  some  sudden  occasion 
when  a  present  is  the  proper  thing  j*  &  & 
The  Man  of  Sorrows  $2.00 

Thomas  Jefferson  2.00 

Compensation  2.00 

A  Christmas  Carol  2.00 

Respectability  2.00 

A  Dog  of  Flanders  2.00 

The  Law  of  Love  2.00 

The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol  2.00 

Nature  2.00 

Self-Reliance  2.00 

Justinian  and  Theodora  2.00 

Crimes  Against  Criminals  2.00 

William  Morris  Book  2.00 

THE     ROYCROFTERS 
EAST    AURORA,    ERIE    CO.,    NEW    YORK 


For  The  Illuminati  Only! 


f 


HE  ROYCROFT  REMINDER  or  CALEN- 
DAR is  very  Roycroftie.  It  con- 
tains for  every  day  in  the  year  an 
orphic  by  Fra  Elbertus;  a  blank 
space  for  tickler,  or  a  Friendship's 
Garland  &  If  you  do  not  like  the 
orphic,  just  write  a  better  one 
yourself  in  the  blank  space  pro- 
vided. Ideas  make  the  world  go 
'round.The  Two  Dollars  we  ask  for 
this  Calendar  is  simply  to  cover  expenses  for  salt  for 
putting  on  the  tails  of  the  Ideas.  Three  Hundred  and 
Sixty-Five  Ideas  for  Two  Dollars — one-half  of  a  cent 
each  !  Some  of  these  Ideas  will  cash  you  in  a  thousand 
dollars  or  more,  otherwise  you  are  a  has-wasser, 
which  the  same  you  are  n't. 

THE  REMINDER  looked  upon  daily,  at  your  desk, 
on  the  wall,  or  library  table  is  warranted  to  bring  you 
health,  success,  and  the  friendship  of  all  Good  People. 
The  boards  and  iron  are  blessed  by  the  Pastor. 

DO  NOT  REMITbyDraft,Post-OfBceorExpressOrder 
or  by  Registered  Letter — such  methods  are  dangerous, 
cumbersome,  objectionable  and  unbusinesslike.  All 
remittances  are  at  our  risk — we  have  faith  in  the  honesty 
of  Uncle  Samuel  and  his  boys  who  handle  the  mail. 

REMIT  the  Two  Dollars  now,  while  you  think  of  it,  fac- 
ing the  East,  putting  the  money  in  the  envelope  &  mak- 
ing a  wish,  which  the  same  we  guarantee  to  come  true. 

Orders   Received   Now  secure  the   Leaves 
from    April   1st,    1907,   to    April   1st,    1908. 

THE    ROYCROFTERS,    East  Aurora,  New  York 


This  Then  Is  To  Announce  A 

William  Morris  Book 

Being  a  Little  Journey  by  Elbert  Hubbard, 
and  some  Letters,  heretofore  unpublished, 
written  to  his  friend  and  'fellow  worker, 
Robert  Thomson,  all  throwing  a  side-light 
more  or  less,  on  the  man  and  his  times 

Printed  on  hand  made  paper,  in 
red  and  black  with  Morris  Ini- 
tials, facsimile  reproduction  of 
MS.,  and  two  portraits  on  Japan 
Vellum  s*»  Bound  in  limp  leather, 
silk  lined,  with  silk  marker,  $2.00 

THE     ROYCROFTERS 

East  Aurora,   Erie  County,  New  York 


We  found  a  quantity  of  small  pieces  of 
oak,  mahogany  &  black  walnut  chucked 
away  in  the  loft,  (too  small  for  anything 
else)  so  made  them  up  into  foot-stools. 


No.  048  (like  above)  and  tabourets  No.  0501-2. 
FOOT-STOOLS 

Oak,  $5.00  Mahogany,  $6.00        Black  Walnut,  $6.75 

TABOURETS 

Oak,  $5.00  Mahogany,  $6.25        Black  Walnut,  $7.00 

Now  we  have  done  our  part  in  making 
them  (as  well  as  we  could)  and  to  induce 
you  to  do  your  part  in  ordering  (as  quick 
as  you  can)  we  will  crate  in  with  each 
stool  or  tabouret  one  of  our  weathered 
oak  book-racks,  No.  0116,  gratis — regular 
price  One  Dollar  and  Fifty  Cents. 
This  holds  good  until  they  are  gone! 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,   East  Aurora,   N.  Y. 


The  Roycrofters 

DO    PRINTING 

For  their  friends.  Folders,  with  or  with- 
out Envelopes,  Booklets,  Etc.  We  are  the 
largest  buyers  of  hand-made  paper  in 
America,  and  the  rustle  of  folders  on 
hand-made  paper  attracts  attention  like 
the  frou  frou  of  a  silk  petticoat  V*  ^  *? 
Our  ornaments  are  not  stock.  We  have 
artists  to  make  special  cover  designs,  if 
desired,  for  Booklets  and  Catalogs.  The 
man  who  gets  business  is  the  man  who 
has  a  catalog  that  is  not  thrown  away. 
We  do  embossing,  engraving  and  die  cut- 
ting for  special  &  distinctive  stationery. 
Write  us,  telling  what  printing  you  are  in 
the  market  for,  and  we  will  send  you 
samples.  Address  the  Printing  Dept.  of 
THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


SPECIAL    BOOKLETS 

TO  Manufacturers,  Wholesalers,  Department 
Stores,  Banks,  Railroads,  Trust  Companies, 
Private  Schools,  Colleges  and  Institutions.  We 
can  supply  Booklets  and  Preachments  by  Elbert 
Hubbard,  by  the  thousand — your  ad.  on  the  cover  and 
a  four-  or  eight-page  insert,  all  in  De  Luxe  Form. 
These  pamphlets  are  real  contributions  to  industrial 
literature.  One  railroad  used  several  million  So»  One 
department  store  used  five  hundred  thousand. 
Thomas  Jefferson  once  said, "  To  gain  leisure;  wealth 
must  first  be  secured ;  but  once  leisure  is  gained,  more 
people  use  it  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure  than  employ  it 
in  acquiring  knowledge." 

A  study  of  these  pamphlets  will  not  only  help  you  to 
gain  the  wealth  that  brings  leisure,  but  better  yet,  they 
make  for  the  acquirement  of  knowledge  instead  of  the 
pursuit  of  pleasure.  There  has  been  nothing  better 
written  teaching  the  solid  habits  of  thrift  since  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  wrote  his  maxims,  than  these  pam- 
phlets. They  appeal  to  all  classes  of  people  and  are 
read,  preserved  and  passed  along.  These  are  the  titles : 

A  MESSAGE  TO  GARCIA  &  THE  BOY  FROM  MISSOURI 
VALLEY  &  THE  CLOSED  OR  OPEN  SHOP— WHICH  ?  & 
CHICAGO  TONGUE  &  GET  OUT  OR  GET  IN  LINE  Jk  THE 
CIGARETTIST  &  PASTEBOARD  PROCLIVITIES  Jk  THE 
PARCEL  POST  j*  WATCH  WISDOM  ^  FROM  A  BUSINESS 
COLLEGE  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  Jt  HOW  TO  GET 
OTHERS  TO  DO  YOUR  WORK  Jtjt&JkJtJkJkJtJt 

Send  ONE  DOLLAR  for  the  whole  set 
THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


CLAIM  YOUR  KINSMANSHIP 

To  do  these  things  in  the  right  way  you  should  wear  a 
Roycroft  Neck-tie  and  a  Roycroft  Pin. 
The  ties  are  full  Fra  Elbertus  size— made  of  best  black 
Crepe  de  Chine— hemstitched  by  hand  at  both   ends. 

PROVE  YOUR  IDENTITY 

The  pins  are  a  neat  little  clasp  bearing  the  Roycroft 
mark — inconspicuous,  but  just  right. 

BE    A    ROYCROFTER 

They  are  yours  for  the  asking  (both  for  a  two-dollar  bill) 
postpaid  anywhere. 

The  Roy  crofters,  East  Aurora,  New  York 

HE  PHILISTINE 

ELBERT    HUBBARD,    Editor,    East    Aurora,     New    York 
Subscription,  One  Dollar  a  Year,  Ten  Cents  a  Copy 

Folks  who    do  not  know  how  to  take  THE 
PHILISTINE  had  better  not'.— Ali  Baba. 

Each  number  of  the  magazine  contains  articles  on 
subjects  having  the  attention  of  the  Public.  Some 
of  the  Preachments  are  of  a  political  nature,  some 
ethical  and  sociological,  some  are  humorous.  These 
last  are  especially  important.  Many  articles  from  THE 
PHILISTINE  have  been  reprinted  and  sold  by  the 
hundred  thousand.  By  subscribing  you  get  the  articles 
at  first  hand — Today  is  a  good  time  to  subscribe. 

Mail  us  a  Two  Dollar  check  and  we  will  send  you  The  Philistine  and 
the  Little  Journeys  for  Nineteen  Hundred  Seven,  and  in  addition  a 
De  Luxe  Roycroft  Book  (jfjtjIjCjIjtjIjIjftjBjl 


OOKS  One  and  Two  of  Great 
Lovers,  being  Vols.  XVIII  and 
XIX  of  Little  Journeys,  are  now 
ready.  They  are  printed  on  Ital- 
ian hand-made,  Roycroft  water- 
marked paper,  with  portraits.  The  title-pages 
initials  and  tail-pieces  are  illumined.  Bound 
in  limp  green  velvet  leather,  silk  lined,  inlaid 
calf  title  stamped  in  gold  on  back  and  cover, 
silk  marker.  The  subjects  are  as  follows: 

BOOK    I  BOOK    II 

JOSIAH  AND  DANTE  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 

SARAH  WEDGWOOD  AND  ELIZABETH  SIDDAL 

WILLIAM  GODWIN  AND  BALZAC  AND 

MARY  WOLLSTONECRAFT  MADAME  HANSKA 

DANTE  AND  KENELON  AND 

BEATRICE  MADAME  GUYON 

JOHN  STUART  MILL  FERDINAND  LASSALLE  AND 

AND  HARRIET  TAYLOR  HELENE  VON  DONNIGES 

PARNELL  AND  LORD  NELSON  AND 

KITTY  O'SHEA  LADY  HAMILTON 

PETRARCH  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

AND  LAURA  AND    FANNY    OSBOURNE 

We  think  there  are  classes  of  people  who  will 
find  these  to  be  just  what  they  are  looking  for 
for  presents.  The  price  is  $3.00  each,  or  $6.00 
for  the  set  of  2  volumes.  VERY  SUMPT- 
UOUS EXAMPLES  OF  BOOKMAKING 

THE     ROYCROFTERS 

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Justinian  and  Theodora 

A  Drama  by  Elbert  and  Alice  Hubbard 

fTT^HE  Scene  of  the  play  is  laid  in  Constantinople 
in  the  year  500.  Justinian  is  the  Emperor  of  the 
•*•  Eastern  Roman  Empire  and  divides  the  power 
of  the  throne  equally  with  his  wife.  Gibbon  says : 
"The  reign  of  Justinian  and  Theodora  supplies  the 
one  gleam  of  light  during  the  Dark  Ages.  At  that 
time  the  Roman  Law  was  contained  in  five  thousand 
books  which  no  fortune  could  buy,  and  no  intellect 
could  comprehend. "  The  Law  then  was  about  where 
our  Law  is  to-day.  To  meet  the  difficulty  Justinian, 
on  the  suggestion  of  Theodora,  carried  the  Roman 
Law  Books  into  the  street  and  made  a  bonfire  of 
them.  With  the  help  of  his  wife  he  then  compiled  the 
book  known  to  us  as  the  "Justinian  Code,"  upon 
which  the  Common  Law  of  England  is  built.  This 
drama  gives  the  reasons  which  actuated  the  man  and 
woman  hi  their  work. 

Quite  a  bookish  book,  done  with  much  joy  in  three 
colors,  on  Byzantine  hand-made  paper,  with  special 
initials,  title-page  and  portraits. 

The  price  in  limp  leather,  silk  lined  $    2.00 

Solid  boards,  leather  back  2.00 

A  few  on  Japan  Vellum,  hi  three-fourths  levant  10.00 
Three  copies  hi  full  levant,  hand-tooled  by  our 

Mr.  Kinder,  each  100.00 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


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ELLA     WHEELER     WILCOX'S 
Very    Latest   Poems 

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DR.  TALKS  OF  FOOD 

Pres.  of  Board  of  Health. 


"What  shall  I  eat?"  is  the  daily  inquiry  the 
physician  is  met  with.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  in 
my  judgment,  a  large  percentage  of  disease  is 
caused  by  poorly  selected  and  improperly  prepared 
food.  My  personal  experience  with  the  fully-cooked 
food,  known  as  Grape-Nuts,  enables  me  to  speak 
freely  of  its  merits. 

"From  overwork,  I  suffered  several  years  with 
malnutrition,  palpitation  of  the  heart,  and  loss  of 
sleep.  Last  summer  I  was  led  to  experiment  person- 
ally with  the  new  food,  which  I  used  in  conjunction 
with  good  rich  cow's  milk.  In  a  short  time  after  I 
commenced  its  use,  the  disagreeable  symptoms  dis- 
appeared, my  heart's  action  became  steady  and 
normal,  the  functions  of  the  stomach  were  properly 
carrie'd  out  and  I  again  slept  as  soundly  and  as  well 
as  in  my  youth. 

"  I  look  upon  Grape-Nuts  as  a  perfect  food,  and  no 
one  can  gainsay  but  that  it  has  a  most  prominent 
place  in  a  rational,  scientific  system  of  feeding.  Any 
one  who  uses  this  food  will  soon  be  convinced  of 
the  soundness  of  the  principle  upon  which  it  is 
manufactured  and  may  thereby  know  the  facts  as 
to  its  true  worth."  Read,  "The  Road  to  Wellville," 
in  pkgs.  "There's  a  Reason." 


LITTLE 


,  JOURNEYS 


TO  THE  HOMES  OF 

Great  Reformers 


Written  by  Elbert  Hubbard  and 
done  into  a  Printed  Book  by  The 
Roy  crofters  at  their  Shop  which  is 
in  East  Aurora,  Erie  Co.,  New  York 
MAY,  M  C  M  V  I  I 


Thomas     'Paine 


THOMAS     PAINE 


THESE  are  the  times  that  try  men's  souls.  The  summer  soldier 
and  the  sunshine  patriot  will  in  this  crisis  shrink  from  the  ser- 
vice of  his  country;  but  he  that  stands  it  NOW,  deserves  the  love 
and  thanks  of  man  and  woman.  Tyranny,  like  hell,  is  not  easily  con- 
quered; yet  we  have  this  consolation  with  us,  that  the  harder  the 
conflict,  the  more  glorious  the  triumph.  What  we  obtain  too  cheap, 
we  esteem  too  lightly;  'tis  dearness  only  that  gives  everything  its 
value.  Heaven  knows  how  to  put  a  proper  price  upon  its  goods ;  and 
it  would  be  strange  indeed,  if  so  celestial  an  article  as  FREEDOM 
should  not  be  highly  rated. 

—THE  CRISIS 


GREAT  REFORMERS 


HOMAS  PAINE  was  an  Eng- 
lish mechanic,  of  Quaker  ori- 
gin, born  in  the  year  1737.  He 
was  the  author  of  four  books 
that  have  influenced  mankind 
profoundly.  These  books  are, 
"  Common  Sense,"  "The  Age 
of  Reason,"  "The  Crisis,"  and 
"The  Rights  of  Man." 
In  1774,  when  he  was  thirty- 
seven  years  old  he  came  to 
America  bearing  letters  of  in- 
troduction from  Benjamin  Franklin. 
On  arriving  at  Philadelphia  he  soon  found  work  as 
editor  of  "  The  Pennsylvania^Magazine." 
In  1775,  in  the  magazine  just  named,  he  openly  advo- 
cated, and  prophesied  a  speedy  separation  of  the 
American  Colonies  from  England  jt>  He  also  threw  a 
purple  shadow  over  his  popularity  by  declaring  his 
abhorrence  of  chattel  slavery. 

His  writings,  from  the  first,  commanded  a  profound 
attention,  and  on  the  advice  and  suggestion  of  Dr.  Ben- 
jamin Rush,  an  eminent  citizen  of  Philadelphia,  the 
scattered  editorials  and  paragraphs  on  human  rights, 
covering  a  year,  were  gathered,  condensed,  revised, 
made  into  a  book. 

This  "pamphlet,"  or  paper-bound  book,  was  called 
'^Common  Sense." 

137 


GREAT   REFORMERS — Thomas  Paine 

In  France,  John  Adams  was  accused  of  writing  "Com- 
mon Sense."  He  stoutly  denied  it,  there  being  several 
allusions  in  it  stronger  than  he  cared  to  stand  sponsor 
for  jfc  jfc 

In  England,  Franklin  was  accused  of  being  the  author, 
and  he  neither  denied  nor  admitted  it.  But  when  a  lady 
reproached  him  for  having  used  the  fine  alliterative 
phrase,  applied  to  the  king,  "That  Royal  British  Brute," 
he  smiled  and  said  blandly,  "  Madame,  I  would  never 
havebeen  as  disrespectfulto  the  brute  creation  as  that." 
Cf" Common  Sense"  struck  the  keynote  of  popular 
feeling,  and  the  accusation  of  "treason,"  hurled  at  it 
from  many  sources,  only  served  to  advertise  it  jfc  It 
supplied  the  common  people  with  reasons,  and  gave 
statesmen  arguments.  The  legislature  of  Pennsylvania 
voted  Paine  an  honorarium  of  five  hundred  pounds, 
and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  awarded  him  the 
degree  of  "  Master  of  Arts,"  in  recognition  of  eminent 
services  to  literature  and  human  rights.  John  Quincy 
Adams  said,  "Paine's  pamphlet,  '  Common  Sense,' 
crystallized  public  opinion  and  was  the  first  factor  in 
bringing  about  the  Revolution." 

Rev.  Theodore  Parker  once  said,  "  Every  living  man 
in  America  in  1776,  whc  could  read,  read  *  Common 
Sense,'  by  Thomas  Paine.  If  he  were  a  Tory,  he  read 
it,  at  least  a  little,  just  to  find  out  for  himself  how  atro- 
cious it  was ;  and  if  he  was  a  Whig,  he  read  it  all  to 
find  the  reasons  why  he  was  one.  This  book  was  the 
138 


GREAT  REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

arsenal  to  wjiich  colonists  went  for  their  mental 
weapons." 

As  "Common  Sense"  was  published  anonymously 
and  without  copyright,  and  was  circulated  at  bare 
cost,  Paine  never  received  anything  for  the  work,  save 
the  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  voted  to  him  by  the 
legislature. 

When  independence  was  declared,  Paine  enlisted  as 
a  private,  but  was  soon  made  aide-de-camp  to  General 
Greene.  He  was  an  intrepid  and  effective  soldier  and 
took  an  active  part  in  various  battles. 
In  December  1776  he  published  his  second  book,  "The 
Crisis,"  the  first  words  of  which  have  gone  into  the 
electrotype  of  human  speech,  "These  are  the  times 
that  try  men's  souls."  The  intent  of  the  letters  which 
make  up  "  The  Crisis"  was  to  infuse  courage  into  the 
sinking  spirits  of  the  soldiers  jfc  Washington  ordered 
the  letters  to  be  read  at  the  head  of  every  regiment, 
and  it  was  so  done. 

In  1781  Paine  was  sent  to  France  with  Col.  Laurens 
to  negotiate  a  loan  jfc  The  errand  was  successful,  and 
Paine  then  made  influential  acquaintances,  which  were 
later  to  be  renewed.  He  organized  the  Bank  of  North 
America  to  raise  money  to  feed  and  clothe  the  army, 
and  performed  sundry  and  various  services  for  the 
Colonies. 

In  1791  he  published  his  third  book,  "  The  Rights  of 
Man,"  with  a  complimentary  preface  by  Thomas  Jef- 

139 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

ferson  jt  The  book  had  an  immense  circulation  in 
America  and  England.  By  way  of  left-handed  recog- 
nition of  the  work,  the  author  was  indicted  by  the 
British  Government  for  "sedition."  A  day  was  set  for 
the  trial  but  as  Paine  did  not  appear, — those  were 
hanging  days — and  could  not  be  found,  he  was  out- 
lawed and  "  banished  forever." 

He  became  a  member  of  the  French  Assembly,  or 
"Chamber  of  Deputies,"  and  for  voting  against  the 
death  of  the  king,  came  under  suspicion,  and  was  im- 
prisoned for  one  year,  lacking  a  few  weeks.  His  life  was 
saved  by  James  Monroe,  America's  minister  to  France, 
and  for  eighteen  months  he  was  a  member  of  Monroe's 
household. 

In  1794  while  in  France,  there  was  published  simul- 
taneously in  England,  America  and  France,  Paine's 
fourth  book,  "  The  Age  of  Reason." 
In  1802  Thomas  Jefferson,  then  president  of  the  United 
States,  offered  Paine  passage  to  America  on  board  the 
man-of-war  "Maryland,"  in  order  that  he  might  be 
safe  from  capture  by  the  English  who  had  him  under 
constant  surveillance,  and  were  intent  on  his  arrest, 
regarding  him  as  the  chief  instigator  in  the  American 
Rebellion.  Arriving  in  America,  Paine  was  the  guest 
for  several  months  of  the  president  at  Monticello.  His 
admirers  in  Baltimore,  Washington,  Philadelphia  and 
New  York  gave  banquets  in  his  honor,  and  he  was 
tendered  grateful  recognition  on  account  of  his  services 
140 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

to  humanity  and  his  varied  talents.  He  was  presented 
by  the  State  of  New  York  "in  token  of  heroic  work 
for  the  Union,"  a  farm  at  New  Rochelle,  eighteen 
miles  from  New  York,  and  here  he  lived  in  compara- 
tive ease,  writing  and  farming. 

He  passed  peacefully  away,  aged  seventy-two  in  1809, 
and  his  body  was  buried  on  his  farm,  near  the  house 
where  he  lived,  and  a  modest  monument  erected  mark- 
ing the  spot  jt  He  had  no  Christian  burial,  although 
unlike  Mr.  Zangwill,  he  had  a  Christian  name.  Nine 
years  after  the  death  of  Paine,  William  Cobbett,  the 
eminent  English  reformer,  stung  by  the  obloquy  vis- 
ited upon  the  memory  of  Paine  in  America,  had  the 
grave  opened  and  the  bones  of  the  man  who  wrote  the 
first  draft  of  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  were 
removed  to  England,  and  buried  near  the  spot  where 
he  was  born.  Death  having  silenced  both  the  tongue 
and  pen  of  the  Thetford  weaver,  no  violent  interfer- 
ence was  offered  by  the  British  government.  So  now 
the  dead  man  slept  where  the  presence  of  the  living 
one  was  barred  and  forbidden  Jt>  A  modest  monument 
marks  the  spot  &  Beneath  the  name  are  these  words, 
"The  world  is  my  country,  mankind  are  my  friends,  to 
do  good  is  my  religion." 

In  1839  a  monument  was  erected  at  New  Rochelle, 
New  York,  on  the  site  of  the  empty  grave  where  the 
body  of  Paine  was  first  buried,  by  the  lovers  and  ad- 
mirers of  the  man.  And  while  only  one  land  claims  his 

141 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

birthplace,  three  countries  dispute  for  the  privilege  of 
honoring  his  dust,  for  in  France  there  is  now  a  strong 
movement  demanding  that  the  remains  of  Thomas 
Paine  be  removed  from  England  to  France,  and  be 
placed  in  the  Pantheon,  that  resting  place  of  so  many 
of  the  illustrious  dead  who  gave  their  lives  to  the  cause 
of  Freedom,  close  by  the  graves  of  Voltaire,  Rousseau 
and  Victor  Hugo.  And  the  reason  the  bones  were  not 
removed  to  Paris,  was  because  only  an  empty  coffin 
rests  in  the  grave  at  Thetford,  as  at  New  Rochelle. 
Rumor  says  that  Paine' s  skull  is  in  a  London  museum, 
but  if  so,  the  head  that  produced  '  *  The  Age  of  Reason ' ' 
cannot  be  identified.  And  the  "end  is  not  yet ! 


was  getting  ready 
142 


HE  genius  of  Paine  was  a 
flower  that  blossomed  slowly. 
But  life  is  a  sequence  and  the 
man  -who  does  great  work  has 
been  in  training  for  it.  There 
is  nothing  like  keeping  in  con- 
dition,one  does  not  know  when 
he  is  going  to  be  called  upon. 
Prepared  people  do  not  have 
to  hunt  for  a  position — the  po- 
sition hunts  for  them  jfi  Paine 
knew  no  more  about  what  he 
for  than  did  Benjamin  Franklin, 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

when  at  twenty  he  studied  French,  evenings,  and 
dived  deep  into  history. 

The  humble  origin  of  Paine  and  his  Quaker  ancestry 
were  most  helpful  factors  in  his  career.  Only  a  work- 
ing man  who  had  tasted  hardship  could  sympathize 
with  the  over-taxed  and  oppressed.  And  Quakerdom 
made  him  a  rebel  by  pre-natal  tendency.  Paine's  school- 
ing was  slight  but  his  parents,  though  poor,  -were 
thinking  people,  for  nothing  sharpens,  the  wits  of  men, 
preventing  fatty  degeneration  of  the  cerebrum,  like 
persecution  jt  In  this  respect  the  Jews  and  Quakers 
have  been  greatly  blessed  and  benefited — let  us  con- 
gratulate them.  Very  early  in  life  Paine  acquired  the 
study  habit  <£•  And  for  the  youth  who  has  the  study 
habit  no  pedagogic  tears  need  be  shed.  There  were  de- 
bating clubs  at  coffee-houses  where  great  themes  were 
discussed ;  and  our  young  weaver  began  his  career  by 
defending  the  Quakers.  He  acquired  considerable  local 
reputation  as  a  weaver  of  thoughts  upon  the  warp  and 
woof  of  words.  Occasionally  he  occupied  the  pulpit  in 
dissenting  chapels. 

These  were  great  times  in  England — the  air  was  all 
a-throb  with  thought  and  feeling.  A  great  tidal  wave 
of  unrest  swept  the  land.  It  was  an  epoch  of  growth, 
second  only  in  history  to  the  Italian  Renaissance.  The 
two  Wesleys  were  attacking  the  church  and  calling 
upon  men  to  methodize  their  lives  and  eliminate  folly; 
Gibbon  was  writing  his  "Decline  and  Fall;"  Burke, 

143 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

in  the  House  of  Commons,  was  polishing  his  brogue; 
Boswell  was  busy  blithering  about  a  book  concerning 
a  man;  Captain  Cook  was  sailing  the  seas  finding  con- 
tinents; the  two  Pitts  and  Charles  Fox  were  giving 
the  king  unpalatable  advice;  Horace  Walpole  was  set- 
ting up  his  private  press  at  Strawberry  Hill;  the  Her- 
schels — brother  and  sister — were  sweeping  the  heavens 
for  comets;  Reynolds,  West,  Lawrence,  Romney  and 
Gainsborough  were  founding  the  first  school  of  British 
Art;  and  Hume,  the  Scotchman,  was  putting  forth 
arguments  irrefutable.  And  into  this  seething  discon- 
tent came  Thomas  Paine,  the  weaver,  reading,  study- 
ing, thinking,  talking,  with  nothing  to  lose  but  his 
reputation.  He  was  twenty-seven  years  of  age  when 
he  met  Ben  Franklin,  at  a  coffee-house  in  London. 
Paine  got  his  first  real  mental  impetus  from  Franklin. 
Both  were  working  men.  Paine  sat  and  watched  and 
listened  to  Franklin  one  whole  evening,  and  then  said, 
"  What  he  is  I  can  at  least  in  part  become"  &  Paine 
thought  Franklin  quite  the  greatest  man  of  his  time, 
an  opinion  he  never  relinquished,  and  which  also, 
among  various  others  held  by  Paine,  the  world  has  now 
finally  accepted. 


144 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

AINE  at  twenty-four,  from  a 
simple  weaver,had  been  called 
into  the  office  of  his  employer 
to  help  straighten  out  the  ac- 
counts. He  tried  store-keeping 
but  with  indifferent  success. 
Then  it  seems  he  was  em- 
ployed by  the  Board  of  Excise 
on  a  similar  task.  Finally  he 
was  given  a  position  in  the 
Excise.  This  position  he  might 
have  held  indefinitely,  and 
been  promoted  in  the  work,  for  he  had  clerical  talents 
which  made  his  services  valuable  jfc  But  there  was, 
another  theme  that  interested  him  quite  as  much  as 
collecting  taxes  for  the  government,  and  that  was  the 
philosophy  of  taxation  jfc  This  was  very  foolish  in 
Thomas  Paine — a  tax  collector  should  collect  taxes, 
and  not  concern  himself  with  the  righteousness  of  the 
business,  nor  about  what  becomes  of  the  money. 
Paine  had  made  note  of  the  fact  that  England  collected 
taxes  from  Jews  but  that  Jews  were  not  allowed  to> 
vote,  because  they  were  not  "Christians,"  it  being 
assumed  that  Jews^were  neither  as  fit  intellectually  or 
morally  to  pass  on  questions  of  state  as  members  of 
the  "Church  "  &  In  1771  in  a  letter  to  a  local  paper  he 
used  the  phrase,  "  The  iniquity  of  taxation  without 
representation,"  referring  to  England's  treatment  of 

145 


GREAT   REFORMERS — Thomas  Paine 

the  Quakers.  About  the  same  time  he  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  Christian  religion  was  built  on  the 
Judaic,  and  that  the  reputed  founder  of  the  established 
religion  was  a  Jew  and  his  mother  a  Jewess,  and  to 
deprive  Jews  of  the  right  of  full  citizenship,  simply 
because  they  did  not  take  the  same  view  of  Jesus 
that  others  did  was  a  perversion  of  the  natural  rights 
of  man.  This  expression,  "The  natural  rights  of  man" 
gave  offense  to  a  certain  clergyman  of  Thetford  who 
replied  that  man  had  no  natural  rights,  only  privileges, 
all  the  rights  he  had  were  those  granted  by  the  crown. 
Then  followed  a  debate  at  the  coffee-house  followed 
by  a  rebuke  from  Paine' s  superior  officer  in  the  Ex- 
cise, ordering  him  to  cease  all  political  and  religious 
controversy  on  penalty. 

Paine  felt  the  smart  of  the  rebuke ;  he  thought  it  was 
unjustified,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  excellence  of 
his  work  for  the  government  had  never  been  ques- 
tioned &  So  he  made  a  speech  in  a  dissenting  chapel 
explaining  the  situation.  But  explanations  never  ex- 
plain, and  his  assertion  that  the  honesty  of  his  service 
had  never  been  questioned  'was  put  out  of  commission 
the  following  week  by  the  charge  of  smuggling  jfc  His 
name  was  dropped  from  the  official  pay-roll  until  his 
case  could  be  tried,  and  a  little  later  he  was  peremp- 
torily discharged  jfc  The  charge  against  him  was  not 
pressed — he  was  simply  not  wanted,  and  the  state- 
ment by  the  head  exciseman  that  a  man  working  for 
146 


GREAT   REFORMERS — Thomas  Paine 

the  government  should  not  criticise  the  government 
•was  pretty  good  logic,  anyway.  Paine,  however,  con- 
tended that  all  governments  exist  for  the  governed, 
and  with  the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  it  is  the 
duty  of  all  good  citizens  to  take  an  interest  in  their 
government  and  if  possible  show  where  it  can  be 
strengthened  and  bettered. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Paine  was  forging  reasons — 
his  active  brain  was  at  work,  and  his  sensitive  spirit 
was  writhing  under  a  sense  of  personal  injustice  jfc 
One  of  his  critics — a  clergyman — said  that  if  Thomas 
Paine  wished  to  preach  sedition  there  was  plenty  of 
room  to  do  it  outside  of  England.  Paine  followed  the 
suggestion,  and  straightway  sought  out  Franklin  to 
ask  him  about  going  to  America. 

jfc  Every  idea  that  Paine  had  expressed  was  held  by 
Franklin  and  had  been  thought  out  at  length.  Franklin 
was  thirty-one  years  older  than  Paine,  and  time  had 
tempered  his  zeal,  and  beside  that,  his  tongue  was  al- 
ways well  under  control  and  when  he  expressed  heresy 
he  seasoned  it  with  a  smile  and  a  dash  of  wit  that  took 
the  bitterness  out  of  it  jfc  Not  so  Paine — he  was  an 
earnest  soul,  a  little  lacking  in  humor,  without  the  adi- 
pose which  is  required  for  a  diplomat. 
Franklin's  letters  of  introduction  show  how  he  admired 
the  man — what  faith  he  had  in  him — and  it  is  now  be- 
lieved that  Franklin  advanced  him  money,  that  he 
might  come  to  America. 

147 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

William  Cobbett  says :  As  my  Lord  Grenville  intro- 
duced the  name  of  Burke,  suffer  me,  my  Lord,  to 
introduce  that  of  a  man  who  put  this  Burke  to  shame, 
who  drove  him  off  the  public  stage  to  seek  shelter  in  the 
pension  list,  and  who  is  now  named  fifty  million  times 
-where  the  name  of  the  pensioned  Burke  is  mentioned 
once  Jt,  The  cause  of  the  American  Colonies  was  the 
cause  of  the  English  Constitution,  which  says  that  no 
man  shall  be  taxed  without  his  own  consent.  A  little 
cause  sometimes  produces  a  great  effect ;  an  insult 
offered  to  a  man  of  great  talent  and  unconquerable 
perseverance  has  in  many  instances  produced,  in  the 
long  run,  most  tremendous  effects ;  and  it  appears  to 
me  very  clear  that  the  inexcusable  insults,  offered  to 
Mr.  Paine  while  he  was  in  the  Excise  in  England,  was 
the  real  cause  of  the  Revolution  in  America;  for,  though 
the  nature  of  the  cause  of  America  was  such  as  I  have 
before  described  it ;  though  the  principles  were  firm  in 
the  minds  of  the  people  of  that  country;  still,  it  was 
Mr.  Paine,  and  Mr.  Paine  alone,  who  brought  those 
principles  into  action. 

Paine's  part  in  the  Revolutionary  War  was  most 
worthy  and  honorable.  He  shouldered  a  musket  with 
the  men  at  Valley  Forge,  carried  messages  by  night 
through  the  enemy's  country,  acted  as  rear  guard  for 
Washington's  retreating  army,  and  helped  at  break  of 
day  to  capture  Trenton,  and  proved  his  courage  in 
various  ways  jt  As  clerk,  secretary,  accountant  and 
financier  he  did  excellent  service. 

Of  course,  there  had  been  the  usual  harmonious  dis- 
cord that  will  occur  among  men  hard-pressed,  over- 
148 


GREAT   REFORMERS  —  Thomas  Paine 

worked,  where  nerve-tension  finds  vent  at  times  in 
acrimony.  But  through  all  the  nine  weary  years  before 
the  British  had  enough,  Paine  had  never  been  cen- 
sured with  the  same  bitterness  which  had  fallen  upon 
the  heads  of  Washington  and  Jefferson.  Even  Franklin 
came  in  for  his  share  of  blame,  and  it  was  shown  that 
he  expended  an  even  hundred  thousand  pounds  in 
Europe,  with  no  explanation  of  what  he  had  done  with 
the  money  jfc  When  called  upon  to  give  an  accounting 
for  the  "  yellow  dog  fund,"  Franklin  simply  wrote  back, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the 
corn."  And  on  the  suggestion  of  Thomas  Paine  the 
matter  was  officially  dropped. 

Paine  was  a  writing  man — the  very  first  American 
writing  man — and  I  am  humiliated  when  I  have  to 
acknowledge  that  we  had  to  get  him  from  England. 
He  was  the  first  man  who  ever  used  these  words,  "The 
American  Nation,"  and  also  these,  "The  United  States1 
of  America."  Paine  is  the  first  American  writer  who 
had  a  literary  style,  and  we  have  not  had  so  many 
since  but  that  you  may  count  them  on  the  fingers  of 
one  hand.  Note  this  sample  of  antithesis :  "There  are 
but  two  natural  sources  of  wealth — the  earth  and  the 
ocean, — and  to  lose  the  right  to  either,  in  our  situa- 
tion, is  to  put  the  other  up  for  sale." 
Here  is  a  little  tribute  from  Paine's  pen  to  America 
which  some  of  our  boomers  of  boom  towns  might  do 
well  to  use : 

149 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

America  has  now  outgrown  the  state  of  infancy.  Her 
strength  and  commerce  make  large  advances  to  man- 
hood; and  science  in  all  its  branches  has  not  only 
blossomed,  but  even  ripened  upon  the  soil  j*  The  cot- 
tages as  it  were  of  yesterday  have  grown  into  villages, 
and  the  villages  to  cities ;  and  while  proud  antiquity, 
like  a  skeleton  in  rags,  parades  the  streets  of  other 
nations,  their  genius  as  if  sickened  and  disgusted  with 
the  phantom,  comes  hither  for  recovery.  America  yet 
inherits  a  large  portion  of  her  first-imported  virtue. 
Degeneracy  is  here  almost  a  useless  word.  Those  who 
are  conversant  with  Europe  would  be  tempted  to  be- 
lieve that  even  the  air  of  the  Atlantic  disagrees  with 
the  constitution  of  foreign  vices ;  if  they  survive  the 
voyage  they  either  expire  on  their  arrival,  or  linger 
away  with  an  incurable  consumption.  There  is  a  happy 
something  in  the  climate  of  America  which  disarms 
them  of  all  their  power  both  of  infection  and  attraction. 
QEase,  fluidity,  grace,  imagination,  energy,  earnest- 
ness, mark  his  work  &  No  wonder  is  it  that  Franklin 
said,  "  Others  can  rule,  many  can  fight,  but  only  Paine 
can  write  for  us  the  English  tongue."  And  Jefferson, 
himself  a  great  writer,  'was  constantly,  for  many  years, 
sending  to  Paine  manuscript  for  criticism  and  correc- 
tion. In  one  letter  to  Paine,  Jefferson  adds  this  post- 
script, "  You  must  not  be  too  much  elated  and  set  up 
when  I  tell  you  my  belief  that  you  are  the  only  writer 
in  America  who  can  write  better  than  your  obliged 
and  obedient  servant — Thomas  Jefferson." 


150 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

AINE  was  living  in  peace  at 
Bordentown  in  the  year  1787. 
The  war  was  ended — the  last 
hostile  Britisher  had  departed, 
and  the  country  was  awaken- 
ing to  prosperity.  Paine  rode 
his  mettlesome  old  war-horse 
"  Button,"  back  and  forth  from 
Philadelphia,  often  stopping 
and  seating  himself  by  the 
roadway  to  write  out  a  thought 
while  the  horse  that  had  known 
the  smell  of  powder  quietly  nibbled  the  grass  jfc  The 
success  of  Benjamin  Franklin  as  an  inventor  had  fired 
the  heart  of  Paine.  He  devised  a  plan  to  utilize  small 
explosions  of  gunpowder  to  run  an  engine,  thus  antic- 
ipating our  gas  and  gasoline  engines  by  near  a  hundred 
years  jt  He  had  also  planned  a  bridge  to  span  the 
Schuylkill.  Capitalists  were  ready  to  build  the  bridge, 
provided  Paine  could  get  French  engineers,  then  the 
greatest  in  the  world,  to  endorse  his  plans  jfi  So  he 
sailed  away  to  France,  intending  also  to  visit  his  par- 
ents in  England,  instructing  his  friends  in  Borden- 
town, with  whom  he  boarded,  to  take  care  of  his  horse, 
his  room  and  books  with  all  his  papers,  for  he  would 
be  back  in  less  than  a  year  ^  He  was  fifty  years  old. 
It  was  thirteen  years  since  he  had  left  England,  and 
he  felt  that  his  transplantation  to  a  new  soil  had  not 

151 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

been  in  vain.  England  had  practically  exiled  him,  but 
still  the  land  of  his  birth  called,  and  unseen  tendrils 
tugged  at  his  heart.  He  must  again  see  England,  even 
for  a  brief  visit,  and  then  back  to  America,  the  land 
that  he  loved  and  which  he  had  helped  to  free. 
And  destiny  devised  that  it  was  to  be  fifteen  years 
before  he  was  again  to  see  his  beloved  "  United  States 
of  America." 

Arriving  in  France,  Paine  was  received  with  great 
honors  &  There  was  much  political  unrest  and  the 
fuse  was  then  being  lighted  that  was  to  cause  the  ex- 
plosion of  1789.  However,  of  all  this  Paine  knew  little. 
He  met  Danton,  a  freemason,  like  himself,  and  various 
other  radicals.  "Common  Sense"  and  "The  Crisis" 
had  been  translated  into  French,  printed  and  widely 
distributed,  and  inasmuch  as  Paine  had  been  a  party 
in  bringing  about  one  revolution,  and  had  helped  carry 
it  through  to  success,  his  counsel  and  advice  were 
sought.  A  few  short  weeks  in  France,  and  Paine  hav- 
ing secured  the  endorsement  of  the  Academy  for  his 
bridge,  went  over  to  England  preparatory  to  sailing 
for  America. 

Arriving  in  England,  Paine  found  that  his  father  had 
died  but  a  short  time  before  ^t  His  mother  was  living, 
aged  ninety-one,  and  in  full  possession  of  her  faculties. 
The  meeting  of  mother  and  son  was  full  of  tender 
memories  jt  And  the  mother,  while  not  being  able  to 
follow  her  gifted  son  in  all  of  his  reasoning  yet  fully 
152 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

sympathized  with  him  in  his  efforts  to  increase  human 
rights.  The  Quakers,  while  in  favor  of  peace,  are  yet 
revolutionaries,  for  their  policy  is  one  of  protest. 
Paine  visited  the    old    Quaker    church    at   Stratford, 
and  there  seated  in  the  silence,  wrote  these  words: 

CJ  When  we  consider,  for  the  feelings  of  nature  cannot 
be  dismissed,  the  calamities  of  war  and  the  miseries 
it  inflicts  upon  the  human  species,  the  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands,  of  every  age  and  sex  who  are  ren- 
dered wretched  by  the  event,  surely  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  heart  of  man  that  calls  upon  him  to  think ! 
Surely  there  is  some  tender  chord,  tuned  by  the  hand 
of  the  Creator,  that  still  struggles  to  emit  in  the  hear- 
ing of  the  soul  a  note  of  sorrowing  sympathy  &  Let  it 
then  be  heard,  and  let  man  learn  to  feel  that  the  true 
greatness  of  a  nation  is  founded  on  principles  of  hu- 
manity, and  not  on  conquest  &  War  involves  in  its 
progress  such  a  train  of  unforeseen  and  unsupposed 
circumstances,  such  a  combination  of  foreign  matters, 
that  no  human  wisdom  can  calculate  the  end.  It  has 
but  one  thing  certain,  and  that  is  to  increase  taxes  Jt> 
I  defend  the  cause  of  the  poor,  of  the  manufacturer,  of 
the  tradesman,  of  the  farmer,  and  of  all  those  on  whom 
the  real  burthen  of  taxes  fall — but  above  all,  I  defend 
the  cause  of  women  and  children — of  all  humanity  jfc 

Edmund  Burke  hearing  of  Paine's  presence  in  Eng- 
land, sent  for  him  to  come  to  his  house.  Paine  accepted 
the  invitation,  and  Burke  doubtless  got  a  few  inter- 
esting chapters  of  history  at  first  hand.  "  It  was  equal 
to  meeting  Washington  and  perhaps  better,  for  Paine 

153 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

is  more  of  a  philosopher  than  his  chief,"  wrote  Burke 
to  the  elder  Pitt. 

Paine  saw  that  political  unrest  was  not  confined  to 
France — that  England  was  in  a  state  of  evolution,  and 
was  making  painful  efforts  to  adapt  herself  to  the 
progress  of  the  times  jt  Paine  could  remember  a  time 
when  in  England  women  and  children  were  hanged 
for  poaching ;  when  the  insane  were  publicly  whipped, 
and  when,  if  publicly  expressed,  a  doubt  concerning 
the  truth  of  scripture  meant  exile  or  to  have  your  ears 
cut  off  &  js, 

Now  he  saw  the  old  custom  reversed  and  the  nobles 
were  bowing  to  the  will  of  the  people.  It  came  to  him 
that  if  the  many  in  England  could  be  educated,  the 
Crown  having  so  recently  received  its  rebuke  at  the 
hands  of  the  American  Colonies,  that  a  great  stride  to 
the  front  could  be  made  «jt  Englishmen  were  talking 
about  their  rights.  What  are  the  natural  rights  of  a 
man  ?  He  began  to  set  down  his  thoughts  on  the  sub- 
ject. These  soon  extended  themselves  into  chapters. 
The  chapters  grew  into  a  book — a  book  which  he  hoped 
would  peacefully  do  for  England  what  "Common 
Sense  "  had  done  for  America.  This  book,  "  The  Rights 
of  Man,"  was  written  at  the  same  time  that  Mary 
Wollstonecraft  was  writing  her  book,  "  The  Rights  of 
Women"  jfc  jfc 

In    London,  Paine   made   his  home  at  the  house  of 
Thomas  Rickman,  a  publisher.  Rickman  has  given  us 
154 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

an  intimate  glimpse  into  the  life  of  the  patriot,  and 
told  us  among  other  things  that  Paine  was  five  feet 
ten  inches  high,  of  an  athletic  build,  and  very  fond  of 
taking  long  walks.  Among  the  visitors  at  Rickman's 
house  who  came  to  see  Paine  were  Dr.  Priestly, 
Home  Tooke,  Romney,  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,  the 
Duke  of  Portland  and  Mary  Wollstonecraft.  It  seems 
very  probable  that  Mrs.  Wollstonecraft  read  to  Paine 
parts  of  her  book,  for  very  much  in  his  volume  paral- 
lels hers,  not  only  in  the  thought  but  in  actual  wording. 
Whether  he  got  more  ideas  from  her  than  she  got 
from  him,  will  have  to  be  left  to  the  higher  critics  jfc 
Certain  it  is  that  they  were  in  mutual  accord,  and  that 
Mrs.  Wollstonecraft  had  read  "  Common  Sense"  and 
"  The  Rights  of  Man  "  to  a  purpose. 
It  was  too  much  to  expect  that  a  native  born  English- 
man could  go  across  the  sea  to  British  Colonies  and 
rebel  against  British  rule  and  then  come  back  to  Eng- 
land and  escape  censure.  The  very  popularity  of  Paine 
in  certain  high  circles  centered  attention  on  him.  And 
Pitt,  who  certainly  admired  Paine's  talents,  referred 
to  his  stay  in  England  as  "  indelicate." 
England  is  the  freest  country  on  earth.  It  is  her  rule 
to  let  her  orators  unmuzzle  their  ignorance  and  find 
relief  in  venting  grievances  upon  the  empty  air.  In 
Hyde  Park  any  Sunday  one  can  hear  the  same  senti- 
ments for  the  suppression  of  which  Chicago  paid  in 
her  Haymarket  massacre  &  Grievances  expressed  are 

155 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

half  cured,  but  England  did  not  think  so  then  jfi  The 
change  came  about  through  a  thirty  years'  fight,  which 
Paine  precipitated. 

The  patience  of  England  in  dealing  with  Paine  was 
extraordinary.  Paine  was  right,  but  at  the  same  time 
he  was  as  guilty  as  Theodore  Parker  was  when  in- 
dicted by  the  State  of  Virginia  along  with  Ol'  John 
Brown  &  & 

"The  Rights  of  Man"  sold  from  the  very  start,  and 
in  a  year  fifty  thousand  copies  had  been  called  fror  jfc 
Unlike  his  other  books  this  one  was  bringing  Paine  a 
financial  return.  Newspaper  controversies  followed, 
and  Burke  the  radical,  found  himself  unable  to  go  the 
lengths  to  which  Paine  was  logically  trying  to  force 
him  <£  jfi 

Paine  was  in  Paris,  on  a  visit,  on  that  memorable  day 
which  saw  the  fall  of  the  Bastille.  Jefferson  and  Adams 
had  left  France  and  Paine  was  regarded  as  the  author- 
ized representative  of  America,  and  in  fact  he  had 
been  doing  business  in  France  for  "Washington.  La- 
fayette in  a  moment  of  exultant  enthusiasm  gave  the 
key  of  the  Bastille  to  Paine  to  present  to  Washington, 
and  as  every  American  schoolboy  knows,  this  famous 
key  to  a  sad  situation  now  hangs  on  its  carefully 
guarded  peg  at  Mt.  Vernon  jfi  Lafayette  thought  that 
•without  the  example  of  America,  France  would  never 
have  found  strength  to  throw  off  the  rule  of  kings,  and 
so  America  must  have  the  key  to  the  detested  door 
156 


GREAT   REFORMERS — Thomas  Paine 

that  was  now  unhinged  forever.  "And  to  me,"  said 
Lafayette,  "America  without  her  Thomas  Paine  is 
unthinkable"  jfi  The  words  were  carried  to  England 
and  there  did  Paine  no  especial  good  jt>  But  England 
was  now  giving  Paine  a  living — there  was  a  market 
for  the  product  of  his  pen — and  he  was  being  adver- 
tised both  by  his  loving  friends  and  his  rabid  enemies. 
C[  Paine  had  many  admirers  in  France,  and  in  some 
ways  he  felt  mofe  at  home  there  than  in  England.  He 
spoke  and  wrote  French.  However,  no  man  ever  wrote 
well  in  more  than  one  language  although  he  might 
speak  intelligently  in  several;  and  the  orator  using  a 
foreign  tongue  never  reaches  fluidity. '"Where  liberty 
is  there  is  my  home,"  said  Franklin.  And  Paine  an- 
swered, "Where  liberty  is  not,  there  is  my  home." 
The  newspaper  attacks  had  shown  Paine  that  he  had 
not  made  himself  clear  on  all  points,  and  like  every 
worthy  orator  who  considers,  when  too  late,  all  the 
great  things  he  intended  to  say,  he  was  stung  with  the 
thought  of  all  the  brilliant  things  he  might  have  said, 
but  had  not. 

And  so  straightway  he  began  to  prepare  Part  II.  of 
"The  Rights  of  Man."  The  book  was  printed  in  cheap 
form  similar  to  "  Common  Sense,"  and  was  beginning 
to  be  widely  read  by  working  men. 
"Philosophy  is  all  right,"  said  Pitt,  but  it  should  be 
taught  to  philosophical  people.  If  this  thing  is  kept  up 
London  will  re-enact  the  scenes  of  Paris." 

157 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

Many  Englishman  thought  the  same.  The  official  order 
was  given,  and  all  of  Paine's  books  that  could  be  found 
were  seized  and  publicly  used  for  a  bonfire  by  the 
official  hangman.  Paine  was  burned  in  effigy  in  many 
cities,  the  charge  being  made  that  he  was  one  of  the 
men  who  had  brought  about  the  French  Revolution. 
With  better  truth  it  could  have  been  stated  that  he 
was  the  man,  with  the  help  of  George  III.,  who  brought 
about  the  American  Revolution.  The  terms  of  peace 
made  between  England  and  the  Colonies  granted 
amnesty  to  Paine  and  his  colleagues  in  rebellion,  but 
his  acts  could  not  be  forgotten,  even  though  they  were 
nominally  forgiven.  This  new  firebrand  of  a  book  was 
really  too  much,  and  the  author  got  a  left-handed 
compliment  from  the  Premier  on  his  literary  style — 
books  to  burn! 

Three  French  provinces  nominated  him  to  represent 
them  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  jfi  He  accepted  the 
solicitations  of  Calais,  and  took  his  seat  for  that 
province. 

He  knew  Danton,  Mirabeau,  Marat  and  Robespierre. 
Danton  and  Robespierre  respected  him  and  often  ad- 
vised with  him  «jfc  Mirabeau  and  Marat  were  in  turn 
suspicious  and  afraid  of  him.  The  times  were  feverish, 
and  Paine,  a  radical  at  heart,  here  was  regarded  as  a 
conservative.  In  America  the  enemy  stood  out  to  be 
counted;  the  division  was  clear  and  sharp,  but  here 
the  danger  was  in  the  hearts  of  the  French  themselves. 
158 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

CJ  Paine  argued  that  of  all  things  we  must  conquer  our 
own  spirits,  and  in  this  new  birth  of  freedom  not  imi- 
tate the  cruelty  and  harshness  of  royalty  against  which 
we  protest.  "  We  will  kill  the  king,  but  not  the  man," 
were  his  words.  But  with  all  of  his  tact  and  logic  he 
could  not  make  his  colleagues  see  that  to  abolish  the 
kingly  office,  not  to  kill  the  individual,  was  the  thing 
desired. 

So  Louis,  who  helped  free  the  American  colonies, 
went  to  the  block,  and  his  enemy,  Danton,  a  little 
later,  did  the  same.  Mirabeau,  the  boaster,  had  died 
peacefully  in  his  bed;  Robespierre,  who  signed  the 
death  warrant  of  Paine,  "  to  save  his  own  head,"  died 
the  death  he  had  reserved  for  Paine;  Marat,  "the 
terrible  dwarf,"  horribly  honest,  fearfully  sincere, 
jealous  and  afraid  of  Paine,  hinting  that  he  was  the 
secret  emissary  of  England,  was  stabbed  to  his  death 
by  a  woman's  hand. 

And  amid  the  din,  escape  being  impossible,  and  also 
undesirable,  Thomas  Paine  wrote  the  first  part  of  the 
"Age  of  Reason." 

The  second  part  was  written  in  the  Luxembourg 
prison,  under  the  shadow  of  the  guillotine.  But  life  is 
only  a  sentence  of  death,  with  an  indefinite  reprieve. 
Prison,  to  Paine,  was  not  all  gloom. 
The  jailer,  Benoit,  was  good-natured  and  cherished 
his  unwilling  guests  as  his  children  jfc  When  they  left 
for  freedom  or  for  death,  he  kissed  them,  and  gave 

159 


GREAT   REFORMERS  —  Thomas  Paine 


each  a  little  ring  in  which  was  engraved  the  single 
word,  "  Mizpah."  But  finally  Benoit,  himself,  was  led 
away,  and  there  was  none  to  kiss  his  cheek,  nor  to 
give  him  a  ring  and  cry  cheerily,  "  Good  luck,  Citizen 
Comrade!  Until  we  meet  again!" 


GREAT  deal  has  been  said  by 
the  admirers  of  Thomas  Paine 
about  the  abuse  and  injustice 
heaped  upon  his  name,  and 
the  prevarications  concerning 
his  life,  by  press  and  pulpit 
and  those  who  profess  a  life 
of  love,  meekness  and  humil- 
ity. But  we  should  remember 
that  all  this  vilification  was 
really  the  tribute  that  medi- 
ocrity pays  genius.  To  escape 
censure  one  only  has  to  move  with  the  mob,  think 
with  the  mob,  do  nothing  that  the  mob  does  not  do — 
then  you  are  safe  Jt>  The  saviors  of  the  world  have 
usually  been  crucified  between  thieves,  despised,  for- 
saken, spit  upon,  rejected  of  men.  In  their  lives  they 
seldom  had  a  place  where  they  could  safely  lay  their 
weary  heads,  and  dying  their  bodies  were  either  hid- 
den in  another  man's  tomb  or  else  subjected  to  the 
indignities  which  the  living  man  failed  to  survive : 
160 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 

torn  limb  from  limb,  eyeless,  headless,  armless,  burned 
and  the  ashes  scattered  or  sunk  in  the  sea. 
And  the  peculiar  thing  is  that  most  of  this  frightful 
inhumanity  was  the  work  of  so-called  good  men,  the  \ 
pillars  of  society,  the  respectable  element,  vfrhat  we 
are  pleased  to  call  "our  first  citizens,"  instigated  by 
the  Church  that  happened  to  be  power.  Socrates  pois- 
oned, Aristides  ostracized,  Aristotle  fleeing  for  his 
life,  Jesus  crucified,  Paul  beheaded,  Peter  crucified 
head  downward,  Savonarola  martryred,  Spinoza 
hunted,  tracked  and  cursed,  and  an  order  issued  that 
no  man  should  speak  to  him  nor  supply  him  food  or 
shelter,  Bruno  burned,  Galileo  imprisoned,  Huss, 
Wyclif,  Latimer  and  Tyndale  used  for  kindling — all 
this  in  the  name  of  religion,  institutional  religion,  the 
one  thing  that  has  caused  more  misery,  heartaches, 
bloodshed,  war,  than  all  other  causes  combined.  Leo 
Tolstoy  says,  "  Love,  truth,  compassion,  service, 
sympathy,  tenderness  exist  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
are  the  essence  of  religion,  but  try  to  encompass  these 
things  in  an  institution  and  you  get  a  church — and  the 
Church  stands  for  and  has  always  stood  for  coercion, 
intolerance,  injustice  and  cruelty." 
No  man  ever  lifted  up  his  voice  or  pen  in  a  criticism 
against  love,  truth,  compassion,  service,  sympathy  and 
tenderness  ^fc  And  if  he  had,  do  you  think  that  love, 
truth,  compassion,  service,  sympathy,  tenderness 
would  feel  it  necessary  to  go  after  him  with  stocks, 

161 


GREAT   REFORMERS— Thomas  Paine 

chains,    thumbscrews    and    torches?  ((You    cannot 
imagine  it. 

Then  what  is  it  goes  after  men  who  criticize  the  pre- 
vailing religion  and  show  where  it  can  he  improved 
upon  ?  Why,  it  is  hate,  malice,  vengeance,  jealousy, 
injustice,  intolerance,  cruelty,  fear. 
The  reason  the  church  does  not  visit  upon  its  critics 
today  the  same  cruelties  that  it  did  three  hundred 
years  ago  is  simply  because  it  has  not  the  power  £> 
Incorporate  a  beautiful  sentiment  and  hire  a  man  to 
preach  and  defend  it,  and  then  buy  property  and  build 
costly  buildings  in  which  to  preach  your  beautiful  sen- 
timent, and  if  the  gentleman  who  preaches  your  beau- 
tiful sentiment  is  criticized  he  will  fight  and  suppress 
his  critics  if  he  can.  And  the  reason  he  fights  his  critics 
is  not  because  he  believes  the  beautiful  sentiment  'will 
suffer,  but  because  he  fears  losing  his  position  which 
carries  with  it  ease,  honors  and  food,  and  a  parsonage 
and  a  church,  taxes  free. 

Just  as  soon  as  the  gentleman  employed  to  defend  and 
preach  the  beautiful  sentiment  grows  fearful  about  the 
permanency  of  his  position,  and  begins  to  have  goose- 
flesh  -when  a  critic's  name  is  mentioned,  the  beautiful 
sentiment  evaporates  out  of  the  window,  and  exists 
only  in  that  place  forever  as  a  name  «jt  The  church  is 
ever  a  menace  to  all  beautiful  sentiments,  because  it 
is  an  economic  institution,  and  the  chief  distributor  of 
degrees,  titles  and  honors. 
162 


GREAT   REFORMERS — Thomas  Paine 

Anything  that  threatens  to  curtail  its  power  it  is  bound 
to  oppose  and  suppress,  if  it  can.  Men  who  cease  use- 
ful work  in  order  to  devote  themselves  to  religion,  are 
right  in  the  same  class  with  women  who  quit  work  to 
make  a  business  of  love.  Men  who  know  history  and 
humanity  and  have  reasonably  open  minds  are  not 
surprised  at  the  treatment  visited  upon  Paine  by  the 
country  he  had  so  much  benefited  jfr  Superstition  and 
hallucination  are  really  one  thing,  and  fanaticism, 
which  is  mental  obsession,  easily  becomes  acute  and 
the  whirling  dervish  runs  amuck  at  sight  of  a  man 
whose  religious  opinions  are  different  from  his  own  jfc 
CJ Paine  got  off  very  easy;  he  lived  his  life,  and  ex- 
pressed himself  freely  to  the  last.  Men  who  discover 
continents  are  destined  to  die  in  chains.  That  is  the 
price  they  pay  for  the  privilege  of  sailing  on,  and  on, 
and^on,  and  on. 

Said  Paine :  The  moral  duty  of  a  man  consists  in  imi- 
tating the  moral  goodness  and  beneficence  of  God  mani- 
fested in  the  creation  towards  all  creatures. That  seeing 
as  we  daily  do,  the  goodness  of  God  to  all  men,  it  is  an 
example  calling  upon  all  men  to  practice  towards  each 
other,  and  consequently  that  everything  of  persecution 
and  revenge  between  man  and  man^  and  everything 
of  cruelty  to  animals  is  a  violation  of  moral  duty. 


GREAT   REFORMERS  — Thomas  Paine 


HE  pen  of  Paine  made  the 
sword  of  Washington  possi- 
ble  jk  And  as  Paine's  book, 
"  Common  Sense,"  broke  the 
power  of  Great  Britain  in 
America,  and  the  '*  Rights  of 
Man"  gave  free  speech  and 
a  free  press  to  England,  so  did 
the  "Age  of  Reason"  give 
pause  to  the  juggernaut  of 
orthodoxy  &  Thomas  Paine 
was  the  legitimate  ancestor 
of  Hosea  Ballou  who  founded  the  Universalist  church, 
and  also  of  Theodore  Parker  who  made  Unitarianism 
in  America  an  intellectual  torch. 

Channing,  Ripley,  Bartol,  Martineau,  Frothingham, 
Hale,  Curtis,  Collyer,  Swing,  Thomas,  Conway,  Leon- 
ard, Savage,  Crapsey,  yes — even  Emerson  and  Thor- 
eau,  were  spiritual  children,  all,  of  Thomas  Paine. 
He  blazed  the  way  and  made  it  possible  for  men  to 
preach  the  sweet  reasonableness  of  reason.  He  was 
the  pioneer  in  a  jungle  of  superstition.  Thomas  Paine 
was  the  real  founder  of  the  so-called  Liberal  Denomi- 
nations and  the  business  of  the  liberal  denominations 
has  not  been  to  become  great,  powerful  and  popular, 
but  to  make  all  other  denominations  more  liberal.  So 
today  in  all  so-called  orthodox  pulpits  one  can  hear  the 
ideas  of  Paine,  Henry  Frank  &  B.  Fay  Mills  expounded. 
164 


Two   Rogues  in    Buckram  Relieve  their  Minds 

Number  1. — Ed.  Howe    in    "Atchison    (Kansas)    Daily   Globe"   of 

March  4,  1907. 

SECOND-RATE  GENIUS.  Elbert  Hubbard,  editor  of 
"  The  Philistine,"  at  East  Aurora,  New  York,  is  a  second- 
rate  genius,  which  is  high  praise,  for  there  never  was  a 
first-rate  genius,  excepting  a  dead  one.  Only  death  can 
grant  the  superior  degree,  for  to  live  is  to  most  people  more 
or  less  of  an  offense.  Hubbard  writes  a  great  deal,  and  naturally  he 
cannot  always  write  well,  but  if  the  good  things  he  has  written  could  be 
collected,  the  result  would  be  a  book  a  hundred  times  larger  than  the 
gofcd  writing  Charles  Lamb  has  handed  down  to  posterity.  And  the 
"Atlantic  Monthly"  never  appears  without  a  reference  to  Charles 
Lamb.  We  suppose  that  it  must  be  admitted  that  Dickens  and  Shake- 
speare were  first-class  geniuses,  but  in  originality  and  force,  Hubbard  is 
entitled  to  a  place  among  the  second  raters  below  them.  There  is  so 
much  envy  and  meanness  among  the  living  that  Hubbard  will  not  be 
fairly  rated  until  he  has  been  dead  fifty  years. 

Hubbard  is  original  in  what  he  says  and  does  ;  his  Roycroft  Shop  may 
be  an  old  idea,  but  his  writings  suggest  no  one.  Hubbard  does  not 
pretend  to  be  a  saint ;  he  is  perfectly  natural,  as  any  really  sensible 
man  must  be,  and  those  who  do  not  like  a  natural,  sensible  man  are 
at  liberty  to  hate  him,  which  a  good  many  do,  with  extreme  cordiality. 
But  all  those  who  hate  him  are  unfair,  if  they  deny  he  is  a  genius  ^t 
Being  only  a  second  rater,  of  course  Hubbard  makes  mistakes.  For 
example,  we  notice,  in  the  list  of  books  issued  at  his  shop,  one  listed 
at  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  per  copy:  "Thoreau's  Friendship;"  a 
tall  copy  on  genuine  vellum,  with  forty  free-hand  drawings."  Think 
of  the  absurdity  of  issuing  a  book  which  sells  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  per  copy !  Now  that  Hubbard  has  won  his  battles,  and 
attracted  the  world's  attention  in  spite  of  unfair  opposition,  he  should 
print  books  at  ten  cents  each,  instead  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
each ;  books  of  real  value  to  the  common  people,  and  which  can  be 
understood  by  them.  Hubbard's  own  booklet,  "  A  Message  to  Garcia," 
was  printed  in  this  manner,  and  did  much  to  encourage  the  good 

i 


workman,  the  sfrnple,  honest,  capable  man.  Millions  of  copies  of  this 
booklet  have  been  sold,  and  because  of  its  wide  circulation,  the  race 
has  been  benefited;  the  people  are  hungry  for  common  sense,  for 
information  told  in  a  simple  and  convincing  way. 

&     &     & 
Number  2. — By    Leigh    Mitchell    Hodges.    From   the    Philadelphia 

"  North  American  "  of  April  10,  1907. 

;OMES  once  a  year  to  Philadelphia,  to  speak  his  mind  on 
many  matters,  the  greatest  of  modern  epigrammists — 
Elbert  Hubbard. 

He  is  a  philosopher  from  Philistia,  who  wages  a  wordy 
war  against  the  ruts  into  which  the  chariot  of  civilization 
has  slid  on  the  Toad  to  Progress.  He  jests  at  the  frailties  of  the  law, 
makes  merry  with  medicine,  and  rains  ridicule  upon  orthodox  religion, 
etherizing  his  every  shaft  with  a  smile.  With  a  deftness  as  delightful 
as  rare,  he  plays  on  the  high  chords  of  history  the  variant  tunes 
of  time  and  change. 

Unlike  most  image-breakers  that  have  come  and  gone,  he  has  some- 
thing to  offer  for  what  he  would  take  away.  He  does  n't  remove  the 
roof  and  then  seek  to  convince  men  that  rain  is  good  for  the  furniture ! 
With  choice-told  tales  of  fact  and  fancy  he  leads  his  listeners  through 
lanes  of  logic  and  love  to  the  home  of  his  prime  ideal — a  simple 
state  wherein  men  and  women  will  get  by  giving ;  just  doing  the  best 
they  can  and  being  kind. 

&     &     # 

,IS  "MESSAGE  TO  GARCIA."  He  is  revered  and  hated.  He  is 
easily  the  prince  of  present-day  thought -pro  vokers.  His  classic 
"Message  to  Garcia"  has,  in  nine  years,  found  its  way  into  more 
than  a  score  of  languages  and  reached  a  circulation  of  twenty-five 
million  copies.  His  point  of  view,  penned  sometimes  on  trains,  more 
often  on  an  old  flat-topped  desk  in  the  Roycroft  Shop  in  East  Aurora, 
penetrates  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  earth,  giving  birth  to  a 
strange  chorus  of  mingled  praise  and  denunciation. 
His  "  Little  Journeys  "  are  used  as  textbooks  in  many  schools,  while 
copies  of  his  frank  monthly  magazine,  bound  in  butcher's  paper,  have 
been  removed  from  more  than  one  center  table  with  the  aid  of 


fire-tongs.  Q  Comes  this  man,  gentle  as  Wordsworth  and  caustic  as 
Whistler;  a  Johnson  in  retort  and  the  Boswell  of  human  rfature;  a 
sworn  foe  to  pretense  in  its  every  guise  and  above  all,  a  coiner  of 
pithy  truthlets,  to  say  JUST  what  he  thinks  in  spite  of  what  any  one 
else  thinks,  and  to  give  us  a  close  view  of  a  really  great  personality, 
curious  as  it  is  in  some  of  its  myriad  phases. 


GO  DOWN  TO  FAME.  For  Elbert  Hubbard  is  a  big 
man,  though  some  of  him  will  die,  enough  will  be  left  to  secure 
him  a  lower  berth  on  the  Fame  Limited,  which  left  the  valley  of  the 
Euphrates  some  time  ago  and  slows  up  every  little  while  to  take  on 
a  through  passenger.  And  free  passes  don't  go  on  this  train  ! 
Yes,  Hubbard  is  a  great  man  —  hundreds  of  persons  were  turned  away 
from  Horticultural  Hall  when  he  lectured  there  last  Thursday 
evening  —  and  there  's  hardly  a  business  office  of  any  sort  in  all  the 
length  and  breadth  of  this  land  in  which  one  or  more  of  his  striking 
sayings  is  not  to  be  found  pasted  on  a  desk  drawer,  or  stuck  in  a 
picture  frame,  or  given  a  frame  all  its  own  and  hung  where  you  can't 
help  seeing  it. 

And  it  is  the  "  folly  of  precepts  "  mentioned  above  that  furnishes  the 
Fra  most  of  his  food  for  thought  and  comment.  The  mere  sight  of 
some  one  doing  something  because  some  one  else  did  something  — 
this  produces  a  brainstorm  of  protest  behind  that  hirsute  fringe  of  his, 
and  pretty  soon  thereafter  the  world  catches  an  echo  or  two  of  the 
thunder  jt  ^t  <£ 

It  is  this  attitude  that  fathers  his  constant  attacks  on  the  foolish  forms 
and  conventions  of  what  is  miscalled  "eminently  respectable" 
society;  his  vitriolic  dashes  at  the  ossified  parts  of  orthodoxy,  which 
he  chooses  to  call  a  "Juggernaut,  spinning  down  through  the  centuries, 
crushing,  mingling,  smashing  everything  before  it." 
If  heresy  were  a  lay-crime,  the  Day  of  Judgment  would  have  to  be 
postponed  to  provide  time  for  his  trial. 

&     &     J* 

^BEARD'S  CREED.  But,  as  I  said  in  the  beginning,  he  has 
something  definite  to  offer  for  what  he  would  obliterate.  He  rails 
at  creeds,  and  then  comes  out  with  his  own,  which  is  this  : 

iii 


"I  believe  that  no  one  can  harm  us  but  ourselves;  that  sin  is  mis- 
directed energy ;  that  there  is  no  devil  but  fear,  and  that  the  Universe 
is  planned  for  good.  I  believe  that  work  is  a  blessing;  that  winter  is 
as  necessary  as  summer ;  that  night  is  as  useful  as  day ;  that  Death 
is  a  manifestation  of  Life,  and  just  as  good.  I  believe  in  the  Now  and 
Here.  I  believe  in  You,  and  I  believe  in  a  Power  that  is  in  Ourselves 
that  makes  for  Righteousness." 

In  this  is  crystallized  what  may  be  regarded  as  the  modern  spirit  of 
revolutionary  religion,  yet  curiously  enough  it  is  the  sincere  declara- 
tion of  a  man  who  said  last  Thursday  evening  that  he  believed  the 
world  was  really  getting  ready  to  do  what  it  should — to  practice  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

He  has  written  a  life  of  Christ,  "  The  Man  of  Sorrows,"  he  calls  it, 
and  it  has  been  so  well  advertised  by  his  enemies  that  next  to  "  The 
Message,"  it  is  probably  the. best-selling  of  his  many  books.  There  is 
scarcely  a  man  or  woman  in  history  of  whom  he  has  not  written 
uniquely  and  interestingly.  His  "Little  Journeys"  will  last  as  long 
and  as  well  as  "  Plutarch's  Lives,"  and  they  will  be  off  the  book- 
shelf more  of  the  time. 

J*     J*     £ 

kERE  IS  HIS  FAREWELL  TO  THE  LATE  ERNEST 
HOWARD  CROSBY.  He  calls  it  a  love  letter,  and  unless  I 
miss  my  guess,  he  graved  it  on  the  granite  of  time  with  his  Falcon, 
No.  2:  £  &  Jt 

Dear  Ernest:  You  and  I  were  born  the  same  year.  When  we 
climbed  a  mountain  a  short  time  ago,  with  Ol'  John  Burroughs,  you 
in  playful  mood  told  Ol'  John  that  you  expected  to  preach  his  funeral 
sermon.  And  Ol'  John,  in  love,  replied  that  he  hoped  and  expected  to 
do  as  much  for  both  of  us. 

And  now  men  say  that  you  are  dead.  But  you  are  not  dead  to  me,  nor 
to  Ol'  John,  nor  to  all  of  the  many  men  and  women  and  children  who 
knew  and  loved  you  well ;  for  those  who  knew  you  loved  you,  and 
those  who  did  not  love  you  did  not  know  you. 

I  think  of  you  now,  as  I  thought  of  you  while  you  were  with  us,  as 
quite  the  manliest  man  I  ever  saw.  Your  scorned  military  experience 
saved  you  from  the  scholar's  stoop ;  and  yours  was  ever  a  skyey 
gravitation.  Your  towering  form  &  martial  ways  caused  the  Egyptian 
fellahs  at  Cairo  to  turn  and  say : 


"  There  goes  the  King  of  America  !  "  C{  Yet  you  were  not  a  king,  save 
of  your  own  spirit,  for  you  loved  men  too  well  to  wish  to  rule  them. 
Your  prophetic  soul  foresaw  a  time  when  humanity  would  be  free  — 
free  from  the  mesh  of  entanglement  woven  by  centuries  of  selfishness, 
serfdom  and  misrule  —  and  you,  of  all  men,  knew  that  freedom  comes 
through  gwing  freedom.  You  have  left  the  world  better  than  you  found 
it,  and  made  your  impress  on  the  times. 

Yet  you  never  really  had  a  chance  in  life,  being  born  into  the  con- 
ventions, of  a  family  eminently  respectable,  in  a  great  city,  and  heir 
to  wealth,  position  and  educational  advantages.  Disadvantages, 
poverty,  disappointment  and  grief  might  have  made  you  a  Messiah 
—  a  man  whom  men  confuse  with  Deity  incainate. 
Your  unswerving  honesty,  your  purity  of  motive,  your  cleanly, 
abstemious  life  —  eating  no  meat,  drinking  neither  tea  nor  coffee,  never 
touching  tobacco  nor  strong  drink,  yet  never  censuring  those  whose 
lives  differed  from  your  own  —  made  you  as  one  set  apart.  However, 
you  were  never  prudish,  for  nothing  that  was  human  was  alien  to  you. 
In  great  degree  you  overcame  the  handicap  of  birth,  breaking  many 
of  your  fetters,  and  never  wearing  your  chains  as  jewelry. 
Your  name  will  live  with  that  trinity  of  prophets  and  seers  —  your 
own  Tolstoy,  Walt  Whitman  and  Henry  Thoreau  —  as  one  who 
blessed  and  benefited  the  world,  exercising  fear,  banishing  doubt  and 
filling  our  day-dreams  with  hope,  faith,  courage  and  love.  You  were 
a  sample  of  the  twenty-fifth  century,  sent  by  the  Supreme  Intelligence 
for  the  encouragement  of  this. 

And  now,  as  you  fare  forth  into  the  Unknown,  I  salute  you  and 
write  this  line,  trying  to  tell  you  how  very  precious  to  me  is  the 
memory  of  your  friendship,  and  that,  though  dead,  you  still  live  in 
minds  made  better.  So  farewell  and  farewell  ! 


kOU  AND  I  DO  NOT  HAVE  TO  DECIDE  whether  this  man 
Hubbard  is  right  or  wrong.  Time  is  kind  enough  to  relieve  us  of 
that  task,  and  Time  has  hitherto  had  a  way  of  reversing  the  judgment 
of  the  lower  courts  of  contemporaniety.  He  is  a  natural  product  of 
the  times  and  nature  produces  nothing  without  cause  or  reason. 
That  he  is  overcoming  some  part  of  the  proverbial  burden  of  the 
prophet  is  evidenced  right  here  in  this  most  conventional  and  orthodox 
of  communities.  Three  winters  ago  the  best  he  could  do  was  to  hire 
St.  James'  Hall  at  fifteen  per,  and  even  then  he  had  to  ask  his 
audience  to  move  down  front  so  that  his  words  would  n't  trip  on 
vacant  seats.  Next  year  he  '11  rent  the  Academy. 

v 


GOAT      SKINS 

Velvet  finish ;  stamped  discreetly  in  corner 
with  Roycroft  trade-mark.  Suitable  for  spreads, 
pillows  or  other  uses  that  miladi  may  elect. 
Colors,  brown,  gray,  red,  ecru  and  green.  Sizes : 
Between  seven  and  nine  square  feet  Jt,  £,  &  & 

The    Price   is    $2.00    Each    by    Mail 

LOUNGE     PILLOWS 

We  have  pillows  of  two  whole  goat  skins  laced 
together  with  Roycroft  mark  in  corner.  Some 
with  the  edges  cut  square  and  laced  over  and 
over,  others  with  flaps  still  on  and  edges  un- 
trimmed  j*  All  very  decorative  and  artistic. 
Colors :  brown,  gray,  red,  ecru  and  green.  Size : 
Twenty  by  twenty  inches  &  &  £•  £•  &  jt 

The    Prices   are   $5.00   and   $6.00    Each 

(According  to  Size  and  Quality) 

THE    ROYCROFTERS 

EAST   AURORA,      ERIE   COUNTY,      NEW  YORK 


The  Roycroft 
Hand  Bag  «*  «•» 


Velvet  Leather  with  laced  edges 
and  draw  strings,  nine  inches 
high  jtjtjt&^k^k&^jt 

Price  One  Dollar 

THE  ROYCROFTERS 
East  Aurora,  Erie  Co.  New  York 


Handy 
Things  from 
the  Leather  De- 
partment J*  <£  jt 


Roycroft 
Collar  and 
Cuff  Box 


Velvet  Leather 
with  draw  strings, 
stiff  bottom,  seven 
inches  in  diameter 


Price    -    $1.50 


ROYCROFT 

Waste  Basket 

Velvet  Leather,  very  solid, 
with  wood  bottom  covered 
with  leather,  twelve  inches 
high,  twelve  inches  in  di- 
ameter. Prices  §&  So»  So» 

$3.50  and  $4.00 
THE  ROYCROFTERS,  EAST  AURORA,  N.Y. 


Each  day's  work  is  a  preparation  for  the  next 


IN     ADDITION     TO     THE     FOREGOING     ARTICLES 
IN     OOZE     LEATHER     WE     HAVE     &    Jk     Jt    ^    Jt 

PURSES— Red,  brass-framed,  with  Roy- 
croft  mark,  50  cents. 

HAND  BAG— Framed,  with  handles,  silk 
lined,  several   compartments,  $10  &  $15. 

WORK  BASKET— $1.50. 

COVER  for  Philistine  Magazine,  $1.00. 

THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


ill  o' 

BY  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

DNE  of  the  universal  stories  of  all  literature. 
Some  of  the  deepest  and  most  fundamental 
questions  that  can  confront  humanity  are  here 
presented.  We  have  five  copies  on  imported 
English  Boxmoor  paper,  illumined,  frontispiece 
portrait  of  Stevenson,  bound  in  ooze  calf,  turned 
edges,  silk  lining  and  marker.  Price  Five  Dollars 

THE      ROYCROFTERS 

EAST    AURORA,  NEW    YORK 


THE  PHILISTINE 

CONVENTION 

will  occur  at  East  Aurora,  July  First  to  Ninth, 
Nineteen  Hundred  Seven  jfi  There  will  be  daily 
Lectures  by  men  of  National  reputation,  followed 
by  debates  and  discussions,  also  Musical  Events, 
walks  afield,  and  much  good  fellowship  among 
people  who  think,  feel,  and  try  to  tell  the  truth. 

ANNUAL    DINNER 

WILL    OCCUR    JULY    FOURTH 


IOR  SALE!  THE  FOLLOWING 
LITTLE  JOURNEYS  BY 
ELBERT  HVBBARD  in  BOOK- 
LET FORM,  WITH  FRONTISPIECE 
PORTRAIT  OF  EACH  SUBJECT 


Eliot 

Meissonier 

Titian 

Fortujay 

Sckeffer 

Landseer 

Dore 

Bryant 

Prescott 

Lowell 

Simms 

Hawthorne 

Audubon 

Irving 

Longfellow 

Everett 

Bancroft 

Hancock 

Swift 


Browning 

Tennyson 

Burns 

Milton 

Addison 

Coleridge 

Disraeli 

Paganini 

Chopin 

Mozart 

Bach 

Mendelssohn 

Verdi 

Schumann 

Brahms 

Raphael 

Gainsborough 

Corot 

Correggio 


Bellini 

Abbey 

Whistler 

Pericles 

Antony 

Savonarola 

Luther 

Burke 

Marat 

Phillips 

Seneca 

Aristotle 

Aurelius 

Spinoza 

Kant 

Comte 

Voltaire 

Spencer 

Schopenhauer 


Thoreau 

Copernicus 

Galileo 

Newton 

Humboldt 

Herschel 

Haeckel 

Linnaeus 

Tyndall 

Wallace 

Fiske 

Godwin  & 

Wollstonecraft 

Petrarch  &  Laura 

Rossetti  &  Siddal 

Balzac  &  Hanska 

Fenelon  &  Guyon 

Lassalle  & 

Von  Donniges 


The  Price  is  TEN  CENTS  Each,  or  One 

Dollar  for  Ten — as  long  as  they  last. 
THE  ROYCROFTERS,  East  Aurora,  N.  Y. 


re  05967 
ft,- 


